La Grotta, April 14

I wrote about La Grotta Ices at Spa Terminus last year. More accurately, probably, I raved about them but winter happened and it was six months before I managed to get my second shot at Kitty Travers' ice cream. If they were open over the winter it was never when I was at Spa Terminus. Clearly my relationship with La Grotta is only ever going to be fond but sporadic. My bank account would probably argue that this is for the best. I am not one to begrudge the cost of high quality ingredients or limited production but £5 for two scoops is priiiiicey.

Still, I am greedy and I couldn't resist so I coughed up willingly enough. I opted for the Sea Salt Rosemary Caramel & Pine Nut Brittle and Kumquat Custard & Bitter Choc-Chip. All points for flavour originality. I stand by last review that La Grotta are better with fruit. The rosemary caramel was slightly unsettling. It wasn't unpleasant, I quite liked it, but it was odd. Despite running an ice cream blog, I don't have a particularly sweet tooth but this was arguably too savoury, even for me. Salt + rosemary + pine nuts are a lot of main course ingredients for your pudding. There might have been too much rosemary... I'm not sure if I've had it in ice cream before but I have baked with it and I think you have to use it sparingly - it is such a meaty, powerful herb and it was a bit overwhelming in the ice cream. The pine nuts were actually kind of invisible next to the rosemary and I've had delicious pine nut ice cream before at San Crispino's in Rome. Individually all of those flavour do/could work for an ice cream but either they're too much in combination or the balance was just off.

Kumquat custard / Salted rosemary

The kumquat was lovely though, unusual rather than weird. I don't have a great deal of experience with kumquats but the custard was charmingly fruity, both creamy and a little sharp, and the dark chocolate stracciatella made for a nice balance. Both ice creams were an excellent temperature (very important!) and there was a slight roughness to the texture that I really enjoyed.

Sure, La Grotta is difficult to track down and expensive and the experimental flavour combinations aren't always 100% to my taste but the quality is wonderful and they're always interesting and I will never pass up a chance to eat their offerings.

Snowflake, Soho

I have a chosen London gelateria. Gelupo has won my affection over the years with its consistently excellent flavours, textures and charm. I am very rarely disappointed by Gelupo and I eat there often. However, in the name of science (and greed) I feel obliged to tread new ground, explore the ice creams uneaten and test new gelaterias. It was following this philanthropic impulse that I sampled Snowflake on Wardour St which came highly recommended by A Little Bird, a weekly newspaper of which I am fond and which, for the most part, I trust. Sure, it is high-Yuppie but there is a part of me that loves organic Swedish skin care and Farrow & Ball’s new line of children’s clothes and £70 floor cushions. It’s a beautiful dream. Plus, their event recommendations are reliably good – tried and tested. All of that is to say that I had high hopes for Snowflake and said hopes were brutally dashed.

I would have been willing to overlook the naff name and the plasticky iPod-style shop if the ice cream had been good but it wasn’t. I had Sea Salted Caramel and Hazelnut and both tasted like sugared margarine. They were much too sweet and they tasted and felt strangely hydrogenated – they slipped almost greasily down your throat before you could even decide to swallow them. Also, and this is a fairly common complaint, they were too cold. That might sound ridiculous but if an ice cream is too cold you can’t enjoy the flavour or the texture properly. I’m not sure why some ice creameries are over refrigerating the good (is it shelf life? If so, please just make smaller batches!) but I would like them to stop.

This probably sounds a bit harsh. Snowflake isn’t the worst ice cream I’ve ever had but lacklustre ice cream so disappoints me. Such wasted potential! Ice cream can be the most delicious thing in the world (fact) so why accept less than perfection? Plus, the price tag on central London ice cream demands consideration. If you are serious about eating ice cream in Soho, in London generally, you are wasting your time here.